Barnes and Noble is throwing in the towel on the Nook e-reader

Barnes and Noble is officially not prioritizing the Nook anymore. The company has announced that in the past three months hardware digital sales fell 8.6%, to $25.3 million. One of the big reasons of the decline is that some stores were moving the Nook section to the back of the bookstore. Apparently this is going to occur in every store going forward.

Tim Matel the Chief Merchandising Officer of B&N said during an investor conference stated “Among the priorities, we’re focused on improving the customer experience in our stores by remerchandising the sales floor in key areas and several initiatives will improve product presentations that specifically benefit the book business. For example, at the front of the store, we are removing NOOK fixtures that were once required to serve a larger business. In the new configuration, it will be easier for customers to shop and more efficient for booksellers to provide service.”

There have been many stores that have disclosed to Good e-Reader that they have been mandated to disassemble the old display units and throw them away or to put them in storage. Nook is now normally found at the customer service counter at the back of the store and there is no longer going to be signage. Most stores will not even have a display unit either.

Barnes and Noble is throwing in the towel on the Nook and giving the floorspace to books and gifts. Maybe this is because their overall revenue fell almost seven percent last quarter, to $795 million. This whole situation will obviously benefit Amazon, which should get older Nook customers looking for an upgrade. It will also be a boon for Kobo, who now has retail visibility in 1,000 Walmart locations in the US and is selling audiobooks and ebooks in another 3,500.

Michael Kozlowski is the Editor in Chief of Good e-Reader. He has been writing about audiobooks and e-readers for the past ten years. His articles have been picked up by major and local news sources and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times.

I am going to my local store today to see if I see a change. Some people online are saying their display is gone. Are they going to sell the Nook business to another company do you think like kobo or kindle and transfer our accounts over? I feel they are making a mistake. Digital is the future paper is not. In my opinion I do not see how hard it is to make an ereader that will match to the kindle.

This has been coming for quite some time, I never considered the Nook competitive with a Paperwhite.
Amazon’s dominance and superb book selling infrastructure, along with Kobo’s deal with Walmart makes life VERY difficult for an ebook reader that is owned by a company whose customers are essentially paper oriented.

X Ray

B&N missed on earnings yet again & canned their CEO. Their efforts at lifting their skirt to any and all angels, though, *appear* to be paying off with an investor that rumor says will be taking this private. We’ll see.

I can’t imagine, though, that anyone would want the Nook business as a stand-alone and, likely since it’s floundering so, neither would the angel. Nope. EITHER the angel happens and dumps the Nook or the Nook goes bye-bye in the B&N bankruptcy.

They said they are going to start looking for a new CEO in October! that will be 6 in five years.

Sportbike Mike

I don’t think it’s the hardware. I think it’s the company. I’ll still buy print books at BN, but i fully expect them too go bankrupt, so I’m not willing to buy digital content from them. I imagine I’m not alone in this position.

Joe Bookseller

I work at a large Barnes & Noble. We dismantled our Nook display stand a couple of weeks ago. The display models are at customer service now.